


Lone Wolf

by Crux01



Category: Homeland
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 05:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7562527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crux01/pseuds/Crux01
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My take on one of the possible plots for season six, fuelled by current awful events in the news. A companion piece to my previous work Saviour which is available here:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>http://archiveofourown.org/works/4045612</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lone Wolf

The anger inside him is getting too hard to control. It burns in the acid of his stomach, eats at the marrow of his bones and stretches his sinews to breaking point until he senses nothing will stop it. It will come, erupting with unstoppable power out of every pore of his body. He will become like those majestic, powerful volcanoes he once saw on a programme on the History Channel, streaming the red hot lava of his fury to purify and punish.

He doesn't watch TV anymore, stuffed too full of the lies and the untruths their stupid, fat politicians spew out, like sugary food, satisfying the immediate hungry urge but ultimately bereft of any nourishing goodness. This election has been the worst. How could anybody contemplate voting for any of them? No, he gets all the information he needs from the new God, from the Internet, addicted to staring at the scene in fact, bearing witness to the horror, the atrocities that this country he now finds himself in does to his true country, his true brothers.

Once, in what seemed like another life, he had been taken in, shared their dreams, wanted to play football, wanted to study, wanted to be an American, paid homage to the dollar. Oh yes, but that stupid naive boy is gone now, washed away by the secondhand horrors he has lived through the Internet. Secondhand suffering that he has chosen to make his own. He has taken their cause as his own. It's his horror now. It fills the awful, yawning chasm that used to be within him, satisfying his hunger, nurturing his greed.

Now he knows what he must do and it makes him feel good.

Getting the gun was easy, as easy as buying a burger in the land of the free that clings so desperately to its second amendment like it will save them from the hell that is coming. Fools! There will be no safety, no respite; the fire is coming! 

Don't they understand he is the good man with a gun?

Now he is ready. 

Ready to scrawl his lifeblood across the sidewalk, ready to burn into their memory cells like a fiery comet in an arc of destruction across the dark sky. Ready to steal souls, to die for his cause, ready to take as many infidels with him, so that his place in paradise will be assured.

Although for him paradise is secondary, he half suspects it doesn't exist. It is the beauty of the kill, the taste of sweet vengeance, of feeling filled, of doing something that is unquestioningly right, even if it lasts for only one sweet perfect second. The thrill of fighting back. It will be enough.

He lets out a long breath, wonders if he should pray again but that moment is passed. Action is what he needs now. He has to do this thing now because......

Because Peter knows. 

Peter the stumbling cripple, with the shaking hands who more often than not doesn't have the strength to get out of his wheelchair. Peter with those perfect blue eyes that see the world so precisely, they carve into the soul, they see where others do not. Peter the ex CIA man who he had watched countless times vomit and spasm in sarin-fuelled tormented nightmare on the net, he had even cheered when the life had appeared to leave him. Why the hell hadn't Peter died there in Berlin? Why had he found the strength to come back, to do 'good', to live his miserable existence here in New York City with his plastic perfect girlfriend, who helped refugees too, and cute little daughter? 

Peter who he hated and yet.... Peter who talked to him with a frankness and understanding that nobody else did, Peter who cared. Tonight at the Center, they had talked, a proper reasoned conversation and he had seen from the way the other man's mouth had formed a silent oh, the glint in his eye, that Peter saw it in him, recognised it as the same fire that had once fuelled his own violence. 

Peter knew and so he had to do it now before Peter managed to tell his old friends. Before Peter the cripple could stop him. He must not allow it.

All those long-developed plans out the window with the flash of understanding in Peter's eye that had sent an icy shaft of fear at discovery through him. Rushing home, ignoring mom's call, straight under the bed, feeling the cold brutal hardness of the gun, pulling it free, holding the smooth grip, owning it. Feeling his path to glory. Shoving it under his hoodie, cold and sure against his skin. And then out of the house, too late for the shopping centre he had planned, McDonalds instead, bright and attractive at this time on a chilly October night. Everything he hates. It is laughing at him, mocking him. Pulling him in, daring him to do it.

There are a group of teenage girls in there, laughing, vulnerable, completely unaware of the danger, simple idiots. He hesitates thinking of Sabriya. Beautiful, sweet Sabriya with brown eyes that have seen untold misery and still smile with simple awe at life. Sabriya who walked out of Aleppo on her own, leaving the barrel-bombed, smashed bodies of her mother and brother to rot in the Syrian sun, leaving the memories of a father and sister disappeared from her but never forgotten. Discarding the shroud of her past, welcoming the wonder of this new life with open arms. Sabriya who was saved by Peter when he was still a soldier, before the sarin turned him into a weak broken shell of a man with the eyes of a prophet. Sabriya who after everything could still laugh, could still feel love and joy. How he envied her. In another time, another place, he would have loved her, even now he feels the warmth of thinking about her blossoming in his chest.

But it's not enough. It could never be enough. 

His blood is hot, pounding around his body, delivering hate filled purpose to his muscles. He is shaking but not with fear, with righteous fortitude, with destiny. No doubt. He is doing the right thing he knows. He has no question, no fear, as his mind plays over the scenes from the net, the horror that has been done to his people. He will unleash here in the safe streets of New York his own retribution. The pain of his people goads him on. His American associates, he has no friends except maybe Peter, are out chasing Pokemon, but he has more important prey to hunt.

He crosses the sidewalk. The world is grey, dirty, unappealing. Cars pass, splashing through puddles of dirty water and oil. The stench of rotting garbage is on the air. He hates this city, so different from the ruin they have made Aleppo, with a sweet ravenous rage. He shivers as the animate world of McDonalds pulls him in, colour, noise, people. His semi automatic suddenly heavy with promise in his arms, he feels the same rush of hope as he pulls it close as a new father cuddling his firstborn to his chest. 

This is his moment.

He crashes through the doors, reveals the weapon, hears with a deeply sexual satisfaction the screams of fear from his prey, cowering, running, fleeing from his brutal cleansing.

He is retribution. He is horror. He is death.

One single clear shot rings out. 

The pain is intense right in the small of his back, he drops the gun with a clatter as his strength is gone, leaving him in an instant, bursting him and his righteous anger like a balloon and then he falls. His eyes no longer filled with hate, no longer filled with life, no longer.... just empty.... dead.

The CIA sniper lifts his own gun and nods once in satisfaction at the Intel his superiors had received.

Peter Quinn knew.


End file.
